


i wanna feel like i am floating

by orphan_account



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Artist!Kurt, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-10 00:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt is a painter who never lets anyone see his world. Blaine becomes a part of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i wanna feel like i am floating

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'fear and loathing' by marina and the diamonds

Kurt liked painting people. He liked immortalising beautiful people with a canvas and paint; he liked feeling less alone in his cramped New York apartment with the sea of faces and his boyfriend pillow…

But in the same way, he hated his paintings. He hated how they never looked quite right; he hated his habit of obliterating their flaws. Because everyone had flaws, and Kurt knew that better than most. He hated his own brushstrokes, and he could barely stand to look at them too closely once he had finished.

He had a job, working in a small coffee shop and avoiding people’s eyes while he served them their hot drinks. He wore a yellow apron over boring, lifeless grey outfits and his hair drooped sadly over his eyes, just the barest hint of product spread through the caramel strands. He might have let himself go a bit.

Ever since Chandler left, he’d been drifting. It wasn’t so much that he’d given a shit about his sad excuse for a relationship in the first place, but Chandler had made him feel like his art was worth something, like _he_ was worth something. For a few short months, Kurt had considered the idea that it hadn’t been a huge mistake to drop out of school and move to New York at the age of sixteen. But now Chandler was gone, and he was alone again. And he saw his decision for what it truly was again: a huge mistake.

He had friends, of course, if you could really call them that. They were distant—he’d never let any of them see his paintings, and he’d never really tell them how he felt about all the crap that had happened to him in the past four years.

His two colleagues—Adam and Brody—were both enthusiastic and likable, but Kurt found himself reluctant to open up to them about his life, despite Adam’s persistent flirting and Brody’s girlfriend’s gentle probing. It was nice, yes, to feel wanted, to have someone take an interest in him and what he had to say. But he wasn’t ready for another relationship, especially not with someone like Adam. Adam was nice, and he was good-looking, but he was also annoyingly determined and he represented all of the things Kurt wanted but couldn’t have: ambition, wealth and happiness. Adam was a drama student with big dreams of Broadway, and he’d chased his ambition all the way from England. He and his family were still close; although they had moved to a country-house in Wales, an eight hour flight away from their son, they sent him all the money he needed and Skyped him every day. Kurt felt a pang of loneliness whenever Adam mentioned them, especially his little sister Madeline. Kurt had never had any siblings. 

He woke up at five am each morning without fail, movements stiff and eyes clogged with sleep, getting ready hastily before heading down onto the already crowded, noisy street and making his way to Costa Coffee to start his shift at six. He had a routine and he liked it. Six hours of pouting bitter brown liquid into ceramic mugs and paper cups, and then a short break for lunchtime. Kurt made a point of always going to Starbucks during his lunch-break. It was a little, private “fuck you” to his own chain. After lunch he went back to Costa for another hour (sometimes two if Adam pulled out his puppy-eyes), and then he went home and painted the most memorable face of the day.

So it was on that Thursday morning, standing yawning behind the counter with a beanie perched on his head and a half eaten muffin hidden under the desk (he stole from work sometimes, another “fuck you”) that he saw him.

Well, the first thing he saw was the red wheelchair and the boy who was sat in it, with brown hair and thick-framed glasses, and he knew at once that it was one of their scarily regular customers, Artie. Normally the boy came in with his roommate, Brittany, and both of them had featured in more than one of Kurt’s paintings. Sometimes he drew them together, and sometimes he painted Artie with fully-functional legs.

But today Brittany wasn’t there.

Kurt’s insides turned into jelly at the sight of Artie’s companion, and he felt sixteen-year-old-hopeful-naïve-happy-Kurt rising to the surface, only to be instantly quashed by twenty-year-old-logical-Kurt. The man could only be about eighteen or so, his hair gelled in a kind of “I couldn’t really be bothered this morning” way: wavy and black and a perfect contrast to his olive skin. His eyes were green, surrounded by thick, sinful lashes, and the faintest trace of stubble littered his chin.

Kurt was painfully aware of the fact that it had been two days since he had last washed his hair, and he flattened his beanie nervously.

“Hello,” he squeaked when they reached the counter. “Welcome to Costa Coffee. How may I help you?”

“Latte for me, please,” dark-hair smiled.

“And I’ll have the usual, thanks, Kurt,” Artie said. “Blaine, go find us a table.”

“O…kay…” Blaine agreed, leaving Artie alone at the counter, smirking at Kurt.

“You like him! Yes! I knew you would. It’s the bowtie, isn’t it? Hard to resist a guy in a bowtie, or so I’ve been told.” 

Honestly, Kurt hadn’t been paying any attention to what the guy was wearing. 

“What?”

“Kurt. If you tell me you’re straight I will run over your foot. I have worked hard to find the perfect guy for you and it turns out that he is Brittany’s ex-boyfriend’s best friend. So.”

“Artie. I barely know you,” Kurt protested.

“I’ve been coming here four mornings a week for five months,” Artie pointed out.

“You still—you shouldn’t’ve…” Kurt spluttered.

“Look, Adam goes on and on about how you’re basically depressed, and how you haven’t had a boyfriend in the six months you’ve worked here—” (had it been that long?) “—and I just thought you’d like Blaine. Even as a friend. It’s impossible not to love him, honestly,” Artie explained. 

“Fine!” Kurt replied, defeated. “But I’m on my shift right now. Unless you’re gonna wait around until my lunch-break…”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Artie…”

“No. No arguments. We’ll go out for chips or something; you’re far too skinny.”

“Okay, whatever. Go sit down; I’ll make your coffee.”

Artie rolled over to the small table where Blaine was sat, idly playing with a straw, and Kurt shuffled to where the rusty old coffee machine stood. He kicked it sharply, waiting until he heard the familiar thrumming noise that signified the protests of having to start up, and he placed Artie’s mug in the slot, distracted.

One the one hand, it had been—apparently—six months since Chandler, and it wasn’t like that had been a particularly hard break-up to get over to begin with. And everything Artie had said was true. He was ‘basically’ depressed. He found everything monotonous and uninspiring—he was constantly tired and full of regret. On the other hand, though, how could he possibly burden someone else with the failure that was his life? No-one deserved that. Kurt was a mess, and deep down he knew that he was better off alone.

Blaine and Artie were forced to sit—buying coffee after coffee—for two whole hours before Kurt took pity (on himself quite as much as them) and begged Brody to let him off his shift early, so that he could prevent anyone from having to wait any longer.

Oh, God, he couldn’t do this.

“Hi, he said quietly when he reached their table. “Sorry about making you wait so long.”

“Your shift doesn’t end for another half hour,” Artie stated.

“Okay, are you stalking me? I gave the rest of my shift to Brody. He was thrilled, trust me.”

“I’m sorry; we didn’t mean to…” Blaine trailed off.

“No, no, it’s okay. I hate this job,” Kurt amended quickly. “C’mon then.”

They ended up in a cramped Subway eating sandwiches that tasted like crap and sucking fizzy drinks up faster than they probably wanted to in order to take advantage of the free refills. Blaine had a habit of getting sauce on his chin and Kurt had to bite his lip to keep from smiling every time he saw the orange staining Blaine’s stubble. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted to laugh so badly. Artie seemed to pick up on it every time, nudging Kurt knowingly with his elbow and smirking like a child.

They finished the sandwiches within ten minutes, but they stayed anyway, playing hangman on the napkins and giggling without meaning to, and Kurt honestly had no recollection of feeling so effortlessly happy. Normally it was an effort to produce so much as a smile, but with Blaine and Artie telling funny stories—infectuous in their own contentment—he found himself feeling something other than self-pity for the first time, in…well, years.

The bored teenager behind the till chucked them out after half an hour, because they hadn’t stopped with the refills and they sure as hell weren’t buying anything else. She tutted and rolled her eyes as they rolled Artie through the door and out onto the street, laughing as they did.

“Do you need to get back to work?” Blaine asked.

“I’m already late,” Kurt grinned. “Let’s go to Central Park instead.”

They did, and Kurt remembered the last time he’d strolled through the park—he’d been quietly sobbing, the news of his father’s death hitting him hard. Now, he felt happy. It was strange what a relaxed, carefree presence in your life could do: Blaine and Artie’s respective enthusiasm truly was infectious.

“So, Kurt, when did you move to New York? Or have you always lived here?” Blaine asked.

“I moved here when I was sixteen. I don’t…um…I don’t usually talk about it. It was stupid. I used to live in Ohio.”

“No way!” Blaine grinned widely. “I lived there, too! Well, we moved from Florida when I was about thirteen, and then I was enrolled in boarding school since my parents couldn’t be bothered to cope with me. It was fun, though. Felt like Harry Potter, living at school.”

“I was never close to my parents, either,” Kurt found himself saying.

“Why?” Blaine asked tentatively.

“My dad was great, but I guess we didn’t really see eye to eye on a lot of stuff. I always kind of assumed that he was homophobic. It seems so irrelevant now, that… He died a few years back,” he explained quickly. “Heart attack. My mum died when I was really young, so now I’m alone.”

“No-one’s ever really alone, not in a world with seven billion people to talk to,” Blaine said optimistically.

“Well, it felt that way,” Kurt said. “Still does, if I’m honest. I don’t really have any friends.”

“You’ve got us, idiot,” Artie replied.

“Thanks, but…”

“No. No buts. We’re here for you,” Blaine interrupted. He seemed to hesitate for a minute before slipping his hand into Kurt’s. Kurt bit back a smile and squeezed Blaine’s hand, trying to show his gratitude without words.

“Well aren’t you two just the cutest?” Artie smiled to himself. “Brittany will be here to pick me up in five, don’t worry,” he winked.

Brittany arrived ten minutes later, because she’d managed to get lost in Central Park (Kurt and Blaine were almost used to how ditzy she was by now, but it was still funny) and then they were alone and the walk became notably more romantic.

Which was good, but also terribly bad.

Kurt liked Blaine, he really did. He wanted to kiss him and he wanted to never let go of his hand and he wanted to show Blaine all of his paintings and have Blaine tell him they were worth something, even if he was lying. But Kurt did not get close to people. He did not let people into his life so easily. He blocked them out and made sure that his depression went mostly unnoticed, so that other people didn’t have to worry themselves with his problems.

They didn’t talk too much; Blaine seemed to sense that Kurt wasn’t comfortable with opening up and becoming vulnerable in that way. They could have skimmed over more mundane subjects, but that wouldn’t have felt right, either.

So they just walked, letting their entwined hands swing between them, trying to hold back their respective smiles.

“Kurt?” Blaine asked eventually.

“Yeah?”

“Can I kiss you? It’s just…I’ve gotta go in a minute…and I wanted you to remember me and stuff…”

Kurt interrupted him before he could embarrass himself too much (even though honestly it was adorable) spinning round to stand in front of him and pressed their lips together briefly.

“I think I will remember you, Blaine,” he whispered against his mouth.

***

Kurt painted a man that night, and he got every single thing right. He remembered every perfection and every imperfection with a vividness that translated to the canvas for the first time since he’d started painting.

He painted Blaine Anderson, and he decided that there was a way to bring him back from the brink.


End file.
